Page 38 - Afrika Must Unite

COLONIAL PATTERN OF ECONOMICS 23

surplus to other nations and netted the profits herselfjT he
colonial farmer and worker had no share in those profitsANor
was any part of them used in providing public works and "social
services in the colonies. There is a belief that the British Govern­
m ent contributed to the costs of administration and public
services in their colonies. This is a fallacy. Each colony raised its
own budget out of taxes and revenue, and the first charge upon
it was the salaries of the European officials of the administration.
The construction of railways, harbours and roads was m et out
of loans raised from local sources, and was undertaken largely
to meet the transport and communications requirements of the
colonialists. For example, diamonds and gold lay at the basis of
South Africa’s railway system. Gold prospecting, the finding of
coal at Wankie, and the opening up of the copper belt fixed the
pattern of Rhodesia’s first railways. O ur own railways in Ghana
were laid down in order to take out minerals and tim ber from
areas of production to the harbour at Takoradi.
Immense profits have been, and are still being, taken out of
Africa. Im portant m ineral deposits in various parts of Africa
have attracted foreign capital, which has been used mainly to
enrich alien investors. The rich copper mines of Northern
Rhodesia are a case in point. The Anglo-American Corporation
of South Africa with its associated diamond combine, besides
having a practical monopoly of all the diamonds produced in
Africa, and owning m any gold and coal mines in South Africa,
has a large stake in the Rhodesian copper belt.
{, M uch of the great mineral wealth of Africa, which ought to
have been kept in Africa to develop basic industries here, has
been systematically shipped a w a y ^ h e process is still going on,
even in the independent countries. There are those who argue
that the conditions and resources of Africa are not suited to
industrialization. In this way they seek to excuse the economic
policy of the colonial powers and support the infiltration of neo­
colonialism. The argum ent falls to the ground when the facts are
examined.
\ We have here, in Africa, everything necessary to become a
powerful, modern, industrialized continent. United Nations
investigators have recently shown that Africa, far from
having inadequate resources, is probably better equipped for